Legacy and Synchronicity
Today is my father Jack Davis’s birthday. He would have been
94. He died 51 years ago in 1970 when I was 13 years old. My mom became a widow
at 38 with 4 children ranging in age from 6-13. I was the eldest child. My
father was an engineer and owned his own engineering company and foundry called
Rustenburg Engineers.
Growing up in a mining town (platinum) the opportunity arose
for my dad to design a pulley needed at that time for the platinum mining
process. This pulley was patented as the “RENG” pulley. After my dad died, my mom
made the decision to sell the business. It was sold in August 1970 to JCI Engineering.
The legacy my dad left was in part what helped keep my mom to survive financially,
although she was herself a professional pharmacist. The legacy was his generous
spirit in the community and the fact that we felt proud of what my dad had achieved
and how much he impacted us in the truly short time we had together. This newspaper clipping was all we had.
Harmen arrives back at work in January this year and gives
Martin the original pulley made by my dad so many years back. These were lying
in his dad’s garage. We do not yet have the full story of how this came about,
but Hilko worked in the same Accounting company in Rustenburg who managed my
Father’s business affairs. Martin and Harmen’s grannies were good friends and
fellow Rotarians. I am presuming it has something to do with samples for the
patent registration at the time.
Martin shared this amazing story with my brother Frank, who
is also an engineer and has given the pullies to my brother.
What are the chances that 50 years after his death that this
piece of metal that only has a special place in our hearts comes full circle
back to us?
A gift to remind us that even though the years have passed, while
we were still children, the impact that my dad had has continued. The gift of legacy and synchronicity.
Thank you Hilko and Harmen, you will never know what this
means to us.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home